Tag: world peace

14 Quotes About Peace

The survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have made peace their number one priority. Did you know that school children in Japan take mandatory peace studies? Perhaps everyone ought to take such classes. This isn’t a class, but perhaps these quotes about peace will inspire some reflections and perhaps actions that will bring about a lasting peace.

image of a dove in flight--a symbol of peace to go with these quotes about peace

What Is Peace

Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character.

Baruch Spinoza

Mankind must remember that peace is not God’s gift to his creatures; peace is our gift to each other.

Elie Wiesel

Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Who Wants Peace?

While there are those who speak of war as some necessary thing, there are those who have been victims of war, soldiers of war—and all they want is peace. Read their quotes about peace.

Peace is our number one priority.

Sachiko Matsuo 83, Nagasaki

The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.

Douglas MacArthur

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

How To Achieve World Peace

Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.

John F. Kennedy

The way to win an atomic war is to make certain it never starts.

Omar N. Bradley

The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.

Norman Schwarzkopf

War may make us great, but let it never be forgotten that peace only can make us both great and free.

John C. Calhoun

The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I could start a war in 30 seconds. But some countries spend 100 years trying to find peace. Just like good manners, peace has to be learned.

Sylvester Stallone

If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.

Mahatma Gandhi

Let Peace Rise Triumphant

When I say it’s you I like, I’m talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.

Fred Rogers

We humans have the ability to make and live in peace. The quotes about peace above are a small token of the ways we think and yearn for peace. So let’s listen to Mahatma Gandhi and to Fred Rogers. Let’s make peace a priority. Let’s begin with the children. Teach Peace. Sing about Peace. And make it more than a dream.

Make Your December Wish Come True

December is full of holidays and goodwill and wishes for world peace. This isn’t the first December of these wishes, so why haven’t we achieved world peace? I can hear some of you now, it’s the other guy’s fault. And the answer is, no. It’s not. To make your December wish come true, you have to be willing to do the work. 

Image of the earth and a white dove with an olive branch in a black field of stars--make your December wish come true...

The Dream of Peace

Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will be as one.

—John Lennon

Obviously, no matter how many people dream it, dreaming doesn’t make it happen. What will? A change in the way you interact with the world. For those of you are saying hell yes, stop for a moment. Are you so vehement in your protests that you are part of the problem? For those of you who think, you need not change? Seriously? If you don’t change with the times or because of newly acquired knowledge, then you are part of the problem, too. 

Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

—Martin Luther King

We all need to stop and consider our most basic beliefs. If they denigrate someone else for ANY reason, then you are part of the problem. 

Respect is the First Step

We all need to find a way to communicate with mutual respect. Even when the other person may not deserve respect, treat them, speak to and about them with respect anyway. 

About now, someone will say we can’t tolerate abusive behaviors or intolerance. That’s true. But you can hate the behavior without hating on the person. You can protest abuse and intolerance peacefully. Think Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Ghandi, and Leymah Gbowee. 

Call out the behavior but don’t resort to name calling. Will calling out the behavior change the person with the bad behavior? No. Sadly, it won’t. But if you don’t want to have bad behavior be accepted as normal, you have to be willing to expose bad behavior without denigrating the person. 

How to Expose Bad Behavior

When any person of authority uses denigrating terms referring to a person of lesser authority and especially a child, that is bullying. When that person is the President of the United States that is behavior unbecoming a President. And when adults ignore or defend that behavior they are people who have forgotten decent behavior. See what how that works? No insulting names; just naming bad behavior. 

Let’s Work Toward Peace

Suspended between two hands the Earth with the outlines of two doves superimposed on it demonstrates that you can make your December wish come true. Work toward world peace.

Peace is the beauty of life. It is sunshine. It is the smile of a child, the love of a mother, the joy of a father, the togetherness of a family. It is the advancement of man, the victory of a just cause, the triumph of truth.

—Menachem Begin

We can make your December wish come true. We can make world peace come true. It starts with each of us. So the next time you’re tempted to fall back into revenge or tit-for-tat behaviors stop–and don’t just wish for peace. Make it happen.